they come from all directions to swell the gathering.
And. so they join together until they've formed those throngs
of such enormous numbers that fall on us when they invade -
to muster them, they've come out from the farthest corners of the land.
The indian's war is a fierce one -- they attack like wild beasts.
They stampede anywhere they like and never get tired of destruction –
they depend for safety entirely on their horse and on their spear.
Anyone who dares stay and face them needs to pull his belt good and tight.*
They're always set to do their worst -- and as they're above such things,
there's no prayer can soften them nor any suffering touch their heart.
They've a mortal hatred for christians and give no quarter when they fight:
they murder without a qualm, they're savage born and bred
there’s no beat of compassion within a heathen's breast.
He gets his sight from the eagle and his courage from the lion.*
There's no animal in the desert he doesn't understand,
and no savage beast he doesn't learn some cruel instinct from.
He's set fast in his brutish ways - don't hope to see him change.
It doesn't enter his thick head to want a better life
all a savage knows how to do is how to get drunk and fight.
Indians can never laugh and there's no use expecting it,
not even when they're full of glee celebrating a successful raid –
to laugh from happiness is a Christian quality.
They sweep across the desert like a beast raging for blood,
giving out the most hideous howling that sets your hair on end -
it's as if the whole lot of them were devils damned by God.
They leave all their heavy work to be done by the women.
An indian's an indian and doesn't care to change his state -
he's born an indian robber and stays a robber till he's dead.
Their witch-women instruct them to poison their weapon-tips,
and as they don't even worship God nothing holds the indians back –
the very names they're called by are of animals and beasts.
And, by blessed Christ! they are the filthiest brutes on earth.
It makes me sick when I remember it those God-forsaken tribes
live no different from pigs in those stinking tents of theirs.
No one could imagine a more squalid life than that.
They've so little, it shocks you... those brutes of indians haven't learnt
that the earth gives forth no fruit unless it's watered by our sweat.
NOTES to II.4
II.4.13] pull his belt tight] i.e. as a preliminary to fighting (see I.7.20)
II.4.15 ] lion] the puma is the American lion, but animal images can be carried over from European poetry.
The ground of the desert shakes when the raiders come back in:
they bring with them thousands of head of cattle and horses ...
you need to be pretty tough not to let it sadden you.
It's a seething mass of indians like grains in a peck of corn.
When they bring the booty together joining all the herds
it' s such a tremendous quantity you can't see where it ends.
The women come back weighted down with clothes and blankets piled high.
It's painful to see the waste of it -- they bring loaded on pack-horses
whole stocks of goods from the frontier stores which they've sacked during the raid.
All they care about is plundering, not staying there in the low lands.
They come down on Christian country like fiends out of hell
if they don't take the Government too it's just that it's not there at hand.
They come back crazy with delight when the raid's been a success,
and before anyone helps himself they start off busily
setting up the dividy (as people say in Santiago).*
They share the loot out equally without any quarelling.
Indians don't act greedy, they're quite correct about that -
it's the on1y time they show respect to any form of justice.
And each one with his share goes off towards his tents –
and then the slaughtering begins beyond all rhyme or reason
so that out of all those thousands there's not one beast left alive.
And when the indian's satisfied that he's done his part of the job
he goes back to his lazy life again and lies there stretched out flat
while the women start in frenziedly skinning the carcasses.
Sometimes they do take a bunch of the cattle, further inland,*
but there's few of them dare undertake this kind of expedition
because mostly, other indians come and steal the lot off them.
But I think the pampa tribes must be the stupidest of all.
They're going round half naked but can't see what's good for them
for any one cow that they sell they kill five hundred uselessly.
Things like this and others worse I saw for many years --
but if I'm not mistaken these crimes are at an end.,
and the savage heathens can do us harm no more.
The tribes have been disbanded -- the proudest of the chiefs
are dead or taken captive with no hope to rise again,
and of all the braves and their followers there's very few now left alive.*
They're savages through and through even in their sports.
They get up a kind of a game you wouldn't think possible –
that's when it's the women's turn to play their part on the scene.
The more savage a man is the worse he treats a woman.
I don't see what delights or joys there could be without her –
it' s a happy man who finds one and can get her to love him!
Anyone who knows how life is finds pleasure in her company:
it' s right that a man who has a heart should consider her feelings too –
it's only cowards who act tough with women.
A woman' s always ready to help a man who's out of luck:
no kind of danger scares her along her road in life,
and there's not one who'd not be pleased to do a merciful act.
You won't find a single woman what I've said won't fit.
I give thanks to the Eternal Father not because he made them beautiful
but because to each one of them he gave a mother's heart.
They're faithful and hard‑working and long-suffering in the work they do.
Maybe I'm not praising them enough though I value therm a lot -
but those ignorant indians treat them like a bit of dirty cloth.
They sweat their souls out, toiling under the cruellest conditions.
The husband is her master, he rules her like a tyrant -
because even in his love an indian never softens.
He has no tenderness for anyone -- he doesn't know what love means:
and what else could you expect from those breasts hard as bronze?
I saw how they were when we got there and I had them marked from then on.
So long as he's got enough to eat he stays peaceable.
I've been there in their tents and watched their way of life
and I tell you, he's like the raven that forgot to go back to the Ark.*
For him, it would be just a game to spit on a crucifix.
I believe God cursed them and this is my solution -
it's only indians, and pigs and cats who'll spill the blood of their own children.
But I won' t take up your time any more with tales of the indians.
I must ask your pardon, I ran on without meaning to ...
Talking about the savages I forgot that sport of theirs.
They make a circle with their spears and the indian men stay outside.
In come the women, running, like mares on the threshing-floor – *
and there they start their dancing going round and round in the ring.
The chiefs are on one side, and the lesser chiefs, and trumpeters
blowing away at full blast like the call to arms in a battle ...
The women can die in there without them breaking the circle.
Often you can hear them groaning, the poor things,
but their cries are wasted because all round the ring
the indians are lying on the ground blind drunk and howling.
The song they sing is just one word and they never vary that.
Io-ka – io-ka –*they all repeat, taking up the rhythm of it ...
It's as if I could see them now uglier than Satan.
Loping round inside the ring, sweating, starving and raging wild,
tattered and draggled, on and on from one sunrise to the next,
in thunder or rain, they go on dancing, chanting that same sound.
NOTES to II.5
II.5.5] Santiago] the north-west Argentine province of Santiago del Estero. The original joke is dialect pronunciation of reparto (share-out) as repartija
II.5.9] inland] i.e. further west
II.5.12] very few left alive] the government's campaign to exterminate the indians was carried through in 1879-83.
II.5.21] back to the Ark] released from Noah's ark, it found food emerging from the Flood.
II.5.24 mares on the threshing-floor] grain was separated by trampling with hoofs.
II.5.27] Io-ka] pronounced yo-KA .
So time went on in its course, and alone as we were
we had nothing to hope for from those bloodthirsty indians:
the one who saved us when we came was the most friendly of them.
He showed he had a noble heart -- he'd have liked to be a christian –
it's our duty to be just and I don't hide his merits.
He gave us horses as a present and sometimes he came to see us.
Even if I wanted to I can't stand against God's will ...
He saved our lives, but -- ah Christ! I've wished many times
that he had never saved us and we'd never set eyes on him.
Anyone who receives a blessing ought never to forget it,
but a man who has to travel far through the troubles of his life
has things happen to him sometimes that are pretty tough to bear.
Little by little I'm coming to the sad part of the story.
When there's a bitter draught to drink your heart takes no joy in it ...
A black plague came into the land and struck down the savages.
Seeing so many die the indians grew desperate.
They shouted in a riot "christian make bad magic"...
There wasn't a creature left in the tents that wasn't finished off by it.
The cures they use are secrets kept by the witch-women.
The indian wives don't know them except for a few very old ones,
it's the witch who tells them what to do with all kinds of tricks, the old hag.
And the patient has to undergo the terrible treatments they give,
because what they call remedies means thumping and squeezing him –
they grab hold of him by the hair and pull out tufts of it.
They do atrocious things to him that it's horrible to see.
The indian bellows with the pain of the tortures he's going through
and they smear him with grease all over and put him out to cook in the sun.
And when he's lying there mouth up they make a fire all round him.